Empathy
by Atomicflea
Summary: Brennan post-ep for "The End in the Beginning". Bones waits for Booth to wake up. I hardly ever 'hear' Brennan, so enjoy, and thanks for the reviews!
1. Chapter 1

Empathy by Atomicflea

Post-Ep Brennan POV for "The End in the Beginning"

* * *

Hospitals are designed for utilitarian purposes, and while I can respect the need for clinical detachment in most settings, I think I might withstand the wait a little better if only this chair wasn't so hard. It digs into me, reminding me that I haven't slept and that he's sleeping too long.

Bones are usually sloping and curved, but even in sleep his Booth has little softness. His face is all angles. Angles are usually localized anomalies that occur in the crestal bone as the result of both periodontal inflammation or occlusive trauma. I try to look at him as an author, a friend, but his face is like a cliff and physics notwithstanding, the imagined vertigo pulls at me so strongly I look away.

If he were awake he'd make some sort of joke to put me at ease, and I would laugh for him. He's not awake yet, so I don't leave.

He wouldn't leave me.

The story types itself. I'm not paying the attention I should to it, but one of the benefits of a superior intellect is the ability to multitask so I'm sure it's good. I'm a good author. I know how to tell a story, especially when it has nothing to do with me. My own story is no one's business.

Aside from the obvious physical limitations indicated in the phrase i.e. two objects occupying the same space, no one can truly understand what it is to be in another person's shoes. Family units and groups are held together by shared needs and provisions, and bonding helps ensure group survival. Emotions are no more than a means to an end, anthropologically speaking, but a necessary means.  
I know it's not apparent to most, but I feel things.

I just don't see the purpose in sharing my feelings because no practical one exists. There's no true place for empathy in science. Still, I'm observant by nature and my intellect and sentience express themselves as routinely as anyone else, natural reactions to my environment and experiences, although of course experts differ on which has greater overall impact.

It's why I became a writer, to share my perceptions in a subjective way that wouldn't affect my work at the Jeffersonian. Sweets told me once it was my way of reaching out to people in a non-threatening way, but that's ridiculous. I'm no more threatening to anyone else than Booth is. I would say even less so, since he has a propensity to shoot first and ask questions later.

The nurse comes in to check his vitals and ask me if I need anything. I'm here long past the official visiting hours, but I insisted. I assured them that as his partner I had to stay with him. I am aware that staff may have inferred a greater meaning than I meant to convey, but at least it allows me greater access. The surgeon updated me on his condition and his vitals are stable. The staff has been very efficient, but I feel my face flush with irritation when she reaches past me to adjust his pillow and his head drops a bit.

I reach out and lift his face so it's not pressed against the pillow. His skin is a pale echo of its usual tone. His stubble scrapes my hand and I remind myself that despite his unconsciousness his body processes continue. He is not gone. He's not here, but not gone. I know what it is to be left behind, and he would not do this to me.

I take a moment to read through my novel so far. It jars me to see that it is not a anthropological murder thriller at all. I've written a romance under cover of a murder. I don't know how what to do with it, so I hit delete and will them all away, Bren and her baby-to-be, her loyal friends and her healthy, loving husband. I wanted a family that would never leave me, a child whose world would center itself around me. Could I just be responding to the expected societal norms, or was it deeper? Did my happiness really revolve around this man?

He opens his eyes. I hear his voice and mine echoes its texture, as if we both had been sick, both unconscious. He is beautiful to me. Bones knit themselves stronger after a break. People think of them as static, hard but they grow. Bones are alive. It occurs to me that he may not realize how long he's been asleep, away from life. From me.

I am not the woman he remembers. He did leave me, after all.

A minute ago he was the person who knew me best and it occurs to me that I don't know him anymore, either. We are strangers, the past four years lost in that observant mind I had become so accustomed to. I walk out to speak to the doctor and away from the look in his eyes. I feel awkward. The brain is a complicated organ. It's possible that this is merely a reaction to the trauma. Cranial pressure can cause changes in mood, memory loss. I can't remember enough soft tissue anatomy to fill in the blanks and my ignorance is a blinding terror. I run to the surgeon like a sinner to mass, and I repeat what he tells me until the logic of it calms me.

Bones mend, people heal. It just takes time.


	2. Chapter 2

Temporary amnesia is not unusual after brain surgery. Booth thought I was his wife. My face must have shown my shock because he immediately asked that I excuse myself from the room. This Booth was the agent in the interrogation room, the Booth of our disastrous first case. When I visited him, he was polite. He observed the necessary social mores. He called me "Dr. Brennan". I disliked it.

I did not like the way Booth looked at me now, like I was missing something, like I left him instead of the other way around.

Once assured of his well-being, I took the opportunity to go on an anthropological dig in Guatemala. It was some time since I had taken such a trip. Either Booth or Dad would give me consistently change my plans by giving compelling enough reasons to stay in D.C., but neither was around to do so now. Well, Booth was technically present, but our conversations were so obviously distasteful to this new person that I didn't wish to provoke him. He was as much a stranger to me as I to him.

Sweets said that he would look after him while I was gone and while I hated to admit it, he was probably more qualified than I in this instance.

The plane and bus rides out were filled with the usual rituals, small cramped spaces and dollars bills slipped into the hands of the airport workers who insinuated that something in my bag would impede my passage through customs, the appreciative looks from the men unused to my height and coloring. This country was different from mine in many key ways. The freedoms I took for granted were much more grudgingly given here, and I pushed back the thought that, for once in several years I was alone, a stranger in a strange land and pulled my scientific, analytical self over my more vulnerable self like a coat.

My Argentinean counterpart met me at the door, excited and already eager to publish the results of this rare anthropological opportunity. The widows' organization that had united us was running a great risk in exposing these past atrocities. As far as the government was concerned, they never happened, like their husbands and children just went to sleep one day and disappeared. I gasped at the sudden pressure in my chest. It was probably the altitude. I wouldn't think of sleep.

I was assigned a teenage escort to shadow me. Abandoning a woman to her fate, much less a foreigner was highly impolite. His thick dark hair spiked out around his too-old face and I returned his nervous grin with the warmest smile I could muster under the circumstances.

That first night I opened my laptop to churn out a few chapters of the book I restarted on the plane only to become distracted by the background calendar on my desktop. If all had gone as planned, I would be taking a pregnancy test about now.

I didn't sleep or write that night. The next day, I threw myself into my work, determined to stop feeling sorry for myself. I had lost nothing. My thoughts were illogical. They would go away in time.

Chontala is in the Guatemalan highlands. In the eighties, the mostly Mayan population rose against the military regime and were massacred for their troubles. Over the course of the month I helped identify the bodies of the slain, their hands and feet bound, killed by _tiro__ de gracia_, a shot to the back of the head to ensure death, even though most remains showed evidence of ligature around the neck and hands, and most were burned even prior to that.

_Tiro__ de gracia_ literally means "grace shot". In French, it was referred to a _coupe de grace_. The word usage was misleading. The shot served no practical purpose, and certainly not a merciful one. Anthropology has several models to theorize about the causal significance and individual motivations for engaging in war, a practice so obviously opposed to the survival instinct. None of these give a satisfying explanation of the meaning of such acts, except to rationalize the reactions of those being attacked. I could theorize about the reason the men sacrificed themselves, but ultimately, I could not answer the widows and mothers when they asked me why the soldiers deemed it necessary to torture them, as well.

_Lo siento_, I said. I'm sorry. I'm not good with the living.

I was invited to the burial as a sign of respect. An evangelical priest dressed in black surrounded by women in their bright traditional dress intoned the prayers of the Catholic Mass. The Mayans of Guatemala and the surrounding regions had one of the most advanced civilizations of the ancient world, their scholars producing works of literature, philosophy, art and architecture and advances in mathematics and astronomy. Mayan scientists developed a calendar more precise than that used by NASA even today. Like many other Western Hemisphere indigenous communities, that was brought to a swift end by Spanish conquistadors. Since the early 1500s Mayan culture wavered like a candle in the changing winds of differing political climes. Despite these odds, the Mayans survive and maintain their heritage, religion and languages intact. They would follow up this Mass with their own clandestine ritual. They would honor their dead in the ancient manner. I would not be invited then.

I stared at their bowed heads as they whispered over the tagged black trash bags that contained their loved ones' remains. The women held each other and cried, and I envied their depth of emotion, the ease in their culture that allowed it to be shared so openly. These men had been missing for decades, and they were still missed. Their loss was a physical presence, one more mourner in the late evening light.

In the end, only 27 of 115 missing were identified, the high rate of decomposition coupled with poor recordkeeping making conclusive identification a significant challenge. I thought of the 88 remaining, and wondered if the rituals provided some comfort to those families as well. I did not think so.

There were no true rituals for unconfirmed death. There were only birthdays and holidays that were celebrated where the absence was noted and tallied. An individual's payoff came mostly as part of a larger whole. Indulging in group practices guaranteed group consideration and support, which should act as a comfort in times of stress. The prayers continued in a musical lilt around me, and their seeming peace unsettled me. What on earth can you find to pray for when your life partner is gone?

I accepted their murmured thanks and goodbyes without a smile.

That night in my hostel room I once again opened my laptop and was surprised to find that I was crying. I caught a look at myself in the bathroom's stained mirror and saw a woman I did not recognize. I hurried to wipe my face when I realized no one would see me. I was alone. For some reason, this didn't comfort me as it should have. The loss of my clinical detachment was as obvious as it was unacceptable. My cultural isolation must be taking a toll.

I did not belong here.

It was time to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, so I didn't even realize I had dropped this one where I did. Let's just say the past season didn't really inspire me. I'm not sure if anyone out there is even reading this, but I'm going to try to pick it back up again and "fix" what I thought was wrong (ehem, *Hannah*). Although I've been in Brennan POV, I'll get to Booth eventually and then probably alternate. I might even (eek!) write my first smut scene! Let me know if I should keep going! **

It wasn't that I couldn't go straight home but that there was no point in avoiding the lab. In the past, Booth would pick me up at the airport, and he would convince me to delay my return to the office by taking me to the diner for pie and coffee. He would listen attentively to the summary of my findings, waiting until I became distracted by a particularly detailed explanation to steal my fries. He would then rattle off the usual assurances about the Jeffersonian still being there the next day before dropping me off at my place, carrying my bags upstairs and finding some excuse to turn on my television until we both fell asleep on the couch after seventeen innings of a baseball game or that cartoon with the talking milkshake and the fries with the unhygenic facial hair.

It wasn't that I couldn't go straight home. Trips financed by the Jeffersonian carried unavoidable beauracratic responsibilities, and I was a responsible person.

I had not spoken to him since my last day at the hospital, when it became obvious, even to me, that he did not want me there. Sweets sent me discreet updates in neutral, clinical terms. I ignored the occasional inquiries about my well-being and focused on the quantifiable. Booth had recuperated well, phycially speaking. The tumor was gone, and subsequent scans were clear. He had sailed through his physical therapy. His hair had grown back.

According to Sweets, Booth's mental progress was just as admirable. He recalled events in his past, recognized friends and co-workers. He knew fantasy from reality. I inferred from this that he no longer thought of me as his wife, the future mother of his child. He had probably eaten several pies in my absence. He would know that I did not like my fruit cooked. I was grateful that I knew what to expect, and I was prepared. If my hands shook a little as I exited the rental car, it was only due to a lack of serotonin. Lack of sleep could easily explain that.

I decided to not look too deeply into the reason for my lack of sleep.

I was walking through the reflecting pool garden on my way to the lab when I heard my name. Angela was sitting outside, talking to a woman I had never seen before. She looked deceptively young from far away, her white-blond hair stark against the green, red lips puckered like a child's, and eyes that seemed narrowed on me in concentration. Closer up she showed the obvious markers of a woman past her prime, although she exuded... something. If I had to quantify it, I would say she was observant. Watchful. I bristled. Maybe it was best to go home. Angela gestured at me, bouncing up and down on the stone bench and introducing the woman as Avalon.

I recognized the objects laid out on the table. The tarot, or tarocchini as it was known in Italy was a deck of cards of four suits that was used to play specific card games in the mid 1500s. Sometime in the 1800s, someone came along and decided that it was a useful tool for divination, likely encouraged by the wide-eyed fascination of superstitious people of the time and now given new wings by easily influenced artistic new-age bohemian types like my best friend. As Angela encouraged her to do a reading for me, I considered how acceptable it would be to simply depart altogether. I could see Angela later. I flashed back to the burial mass, the priest's low voice, the widows' hands clutching their rosaries. I had my fill of superstition.

_"This man was lost, in a cold, dark and lonely place. You brought him the light that showed him the way home. Without it, he would have died."_

In Arthurian legend, the island of Avalon is the land of the fortunate, bearing all good things, happy and blessed in abundance. In reality, Avalon was deluded and grasping at straws. Whatever light I had didn't show Booth the way home. My light was a surgical lamp that obliterated his dreams. He hadn't died, but he was hardly unscathed. It didn't escape my notice that he did not improve until I left. I was suddenly tired. I murmured my excuses and left, dragging my suitcase behind me. I would fill out my paperwork and go home.

I sighed as I entered my office. It looked just as it used to. I bypassed the lights and flopped on the couch, eager to have a moment to myself. Except the couch moved. And yelped. And so did I. He was thinner, dressed casually, in somber colors. His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Bones!"

He looked less Boothy than I was used to, but it didn't impede my thoughtless reaction. I launched myself into his arms and buried my face in his neck, inhaling his clean, strong smell. Feeling his pulse against my temple. After what seemed longer than it probably was, his arms came up around me and I felt his chin rest against my shoulder. He exhaled slowly, his breath in my hair. I forgot the paperwork, my apartment, Avalon. At that moment, I did not need anything.

I was home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Another update! This one was in the works about the same time as the last, so I decided to post it when I finished instead of waiting. It's been sort of silent out there, so please let me know if you're enjoying it!**

Fuck.

That had been the single most common thought in my brain since I woke up and realized my life was gone. I don't mean that literally, of course. I didn't mean it to sound all _Days of our Lives_. Bones would say my statement was an obvious contradiction, probably followed by a question about which of days in our life I was referencing. I still had it, of course. I remembered. Nothing really changed, except for the persistent hollow feeling in my chest and the knowledge that there was a moment in time when I didn't know who the hell one of the most important people in my life was. I thought I knew, at first. I woke up to her stroking my hand, and her profile filled me with the most unbelievable relief until she started speaking. I looked closer. She looked about right, the basics were the same, but there was something...off. This Bren didn't rush to kiss me. She didn't smell the same. She didn't smile as much. She was missing her wedding ring.

She wasn't mine.

My rejection was instinctual. She, who is so often clueless, sensed it immediately. The hot flash of pain in those cool blue eyes, which was usually enough to move me to all kinds of action could barely move me to passive aggression. I turned away from her, this time by choice. I couldn't rationally explain it, so I followed my usual M.O.: ignore it, and wait for it to go away. I wanted whoever she was gone. She was taking up space that was meant for someone else, and the sooner she left, the sooner my nightmare would be over. I wanted Bren. I wanted_ my wife._

Except my wife was gone, and I didn't even get the empty formality of a funeral and a grave that she would later mock me for visiting. I didn't get to grieve.

The next few days were unbearable for both of us. My real life was methodically encroaching upon me, but I couldn't give up on my dream. Not yet. Who in their right mind would give up on their happiness, on the perfect execution of all their hopes come to life? Except I wasn't in my right mind. I was hanging off a mental cliff by one hand and her daily, methodical, rational explanations were prying my fingers off one by one.

I'm not proud of it, but I almost hated her then. She wasn't my Bren. She was a stranger that was robbing me of my family. A stranger that looked exactly like my wife. Despite my aversion, I stared at her when she wasn't looking at me, consumed by my coma dream, the memories that I had of an intimacy that never existed. It got to where I was looking forward to her visits, however twisted up and angry she made me, just so I could look at her, at her earring brushing the curve of her jaw, become aroused by her long legs crossing and uncrossing in the flimsy hospital chair. I tried not to inhale when she bent over me to check my bandage so I wouldn't smell her. Despite knowing she wasn't who I wanted, everything in me turned up and on when she walked in, her sensible boots and tailored jackets so unlike the feminine skirts and delicate heels of my dream.

I felt like I was cheating, so I stopped speaking to her. It was childish, and I'm not proud of it but I was miserable, and I wanted her to be miserable, too.

At first she seemed to bear my anger with a sort of bemused perseverance, as if she expected me to snap out of it any day. As the days turned into a week, and then two, I could see her tuck into herself like a turtle. The more petty I became, the more professional and efficient she was, politely asking me how I felt, going into great detail about the MRIs, but she no longer waited by my bed. She didn't ask the nurse for extra pudding. Whatever Bones was, she was no masochist. She had been through the rejection merry-go-round one too many times not to recognize when it was time to get off. Eventually I heard from Sweets that she was gone to a dig in some godforsaken place, and I felt ashamed. I had been so wrapped up in my loss I didn't stop to think of hers.

You would think I got better after this. I thought so, too.

I went even more out of my mind than I already was, crying in my sleep, begging someone to get my wife, to let her know where I was so she could come. When I slept I dreamt of her, her belly softly swollen, poking at a skeleton. I woke up with a wet face and a raging hard-on, and I didn't know of which to be more ashamed. The nurses' sympathetic looks I could play off as good bedside manner, but after a solid week of Sweet's pitiful expression and daily interrogation, I checked myself out against doctor's orders. If I was going to make an ass of myself, I'd do it in the privacy of my own apartment, where my sissy crying jags could at least be soothed by comic book tub time.

I would remember, and by remembering, forget.

There was a photograph of us at my place I liked to look at. We were on a bench somewhere, drinking coffee, grinning at each other. In the picture, she looked like Bren. Her cool features were incandescent with affection, and her eyes were focused on my face. I tried to step outside myself and look at it objectively, like I would for a case. What would this photograph tell me about these two people? I knew from Sweets that turning inwards toward each other was a symbol of intimacy. The direct gazes, the expressions, everything about it said that these were two people that meant something to each other. She wasn't Bren, that much was true, but she was someone who had meant a great deal to him. To me.

Rooting around the apartment the next few days, I discovered more and more evidence of my real life. Photographs of my son. I had a son. Parker's curls and his smile were his mother's, but I recognized myself in those eyes, and the pride and fierce protectiveness for my only child hit me like a kick to the chest. I didn't have to worry that I would never be a father. I already was, and my son remembered and loved me. Parker was enough of a motivation to get my act together.

At some point, I had decided to be a father again. Because of the tumor? The tumor made me hallucinate babies. Before that, I donated my sperm. To Bones. For a baby.

The thought of her pregnant with my child hurt too much to even think about. Why had I done it?

We were partners, she was obviously a large part of my life, but why would I put myself again through split custody, every other holiday, bickering over schooling, random boyfriends trying to bond with my kid? I tried to think back to Temperance's relationships. Hadn't there been someone else? There was the dude who took her TV, a couple of guys she dated during cases that ended up being tools, her ex-professor, who had dicked her over during a trial, Sully, who had offered to take her around the world on a boat the size of my living room and my brother. Each of these dudes pissed me off more than the last. None of them were fit to be fathers, much less to a child born to Bones. She needed a man who understood her, or at least pretended to so convincingly. She needed someone patient. She needed someone that could give her back what had been stolen from her when she was young. A family. The warmth of a home. A partner with whom to share life's burdens. Love.

_Love is a chemical process which causes delusion._

I should know.

With the passing of each day, my strength returned, and the memories of the two blended in my head. Memories of my absent wife slowly but surely overlapped by those of my absent partner. Over dinner I recalled her in my kitchen, drinking, asking if I would ever betray her. At too many hospitals, visiting each other. At her mother's grave. At my own. In my living room, helping me with my back.

_When I fix things I feel like I'm one with the universe._

Once, I stopped by the diner. I ordered fries and set them across the table from me, and picked a couple of them off at random intervals, pretending to steal them. It wasn't the same. I missed her. I had been an ass, like every other ass she had ever trusted. I let her down. She held on, and I had let go. There was a pulsating absence that followed me in the space my partner had occupied for four long years. My separation from her began to feel like a phantom limb. The idea of Bren only existed in my head, but Bones was real. She was real and I missed her and I was sorry.

_So you just think that if two people care about each other, they leave metaphorical marks which should be allowed to fade naturally?_

Halfway through my second slice of pie I finally remembered why I had volunteered my swimmers for the job. It came down to the simple conviction that any children this woman had- in this reality or any other- would be mine. No one else could occupy our places in each other' lives.

When I got home that night, I called the FBI to make arrangements for my clearance. Bones was due back soon, and I would be ready.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello, everyone (anyone?)! I got one review after two chapters in a row, so when life got a bit busy I let this lapse. I'll probably be posting another chapter this week, but I'll try to wrap it up fairly soon. This started out as a way to fill in the blanks for Season 5, but I also have quite a bit to say about things that were left by the wayside S6, and with a new baby time is at a premium so not sure how long I want to dwell. Maybe four more chapters. What do you all think?**

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I was hardcore waffling on the clothing situation. I needed to go to the FBI to be cleared for active duty, and the closet full of dark suits and odd accessories that filled my closet didn't quite feel like me yet. I tried a couple on and looked at myself. My dress shoes were canvas slip-ons? Was I lazier than I remembered? Why were all my ties so loud? The only decent ones in the bunch still had the tags on. The rows and rows of colorful socks made me think I had stumbled on Parker's things by mistake. The belt buckle I just threw away. What the hell? No wonder I wasn't settled down with a good woman. Who was going to take on a guy who advertised on his crotch? Cocky, indeed. Jesus.

I knew being cleared didn't hinge on my choice of socks, but what had I been thinking when I bought these things? It certainly hadn't been the upward mobility of my career. Did I have any career aspirations beyond working with Bones?

_Jared warned me that you tend to sabotage yourself._

Whatever. I decided to sidestep the issue entirely by throwing on jeans and a shirt. I wasn't going on date. Sweets wouldn't care what I was wearing. Damn it, I missed my dream clothes. Special Agent Seeley Booth could take some style lessons from Booth the club owner.

Once Sweets cleared me and started to warn me about God knows what, I walked out mid-lecture to head to the Jeffersonian to wait for her. Probably due to my overenthusiasm, I had gotten there hours before her plane was even due to land. I'm sure one of those quick cut comedy film montages would show me strolling in the garden, reading the paper by Cam's office, tapping my foot by Angela's station, casually passing by the coffee machine on the overhead walkway, anyplace I thought she might pass so I could catch a glimpse of her when she walked in.

After a while, I finally gave up and just went straight to her office to sit on her couch and sulk. Everyone there already knew I hadn't come for a social call. At least not to them. I didn't know which peeved me more-the sly smile Hodgins gave me when I walked right past him as he inquired about my health, or Cam's pointed quarter-hour announcements of the time. As if I wasn't nervous enough. I fell asleep grumbling to myself, hugging a pillow that sort of smelled like her. Damned squints. I was fine. I was just tired of waiting, that's all. I fell asleep and dreamt of all things, a funeral, and her lovely, sad face.

I woke up to the sensation of something soft pressing down on my waist, and a feminine, uncharacteristically startled yelp. By the time I realized Bones had sat on me and I scrambled to get up, she had already thrown herself at me.

"Booth!"

It's corny as hell, but it's true. I knew what had been missing, and it wasn't a decent tie or a pregnant wife, _it_ was her, and all five foot nine of _it_ was in my arms, her nose pressed against the pulse in my neck. I exhaled out the tension of the past six weeks. Bren faded, the world stopped, puppies frolicked, then sun shone. She laughed, the sound so carefree and happy that it echoed in my hollow chest, and I dropped my arms quickly and stepped away a bit, hoping she didn't notice. I said the first thing that came to mind, awkward as a zit-faced teenager.

"Look at that, I'm reinstated on the day that you come home. That's the weirdest coinkidink ever."

"No, it's not even the weirdest coinkidink today. But if you were reinstated today why are you dressed like a furniture mover?" Trust Bones to notice the one thing you wish she didn't. What did I say, that my closet felt like it belonged to someone else? That she used to pick out my clothes for me but she was gone to Guatemala so I've been waiting for her to get back so we can hit the mall?

"Well...Sweets he just, um, cleared me so I came straight over to tell ya."

"What took you so long to recover?" Oh, I don't know. I thought we were married and I liked it? I didn't want to give up the idea of you as my wife, the future mother of my child? It took longer than I thought to stop waking up in the middle of the night expecting you to be next to me? The sex dreams were amazing, and I didn't feel so bad fantasizing about you in that black lace bra and panty set when I figure I was seeing it under the auspices of holy matrimony? I couldn't say any of this when she was looking at me so earnestly, her blue eyes dark with concern.

"Oh, um, don't worry. Nothing wrong with me. I'm 110%."

For a second, she looks at me like she does her skeletons, and I feel raw. I feel like she can see right through me. I know, deep in my heart, that she knows. There is something wrong with me. There has been for a long time.

"Well, you know there's nothing more than 100%, right?"

I can't help but grin. We're going to be fine.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello, All! Thanks for the reviews and comments. I wish I could figure out how to respond but since I can't, I'll do it en masse. Back to Brennan! I didn't expect to have another update so soon but you can thank the massive blackouts in IL for "focusing" my attention. Ha! Don't forget to review!

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Empathy, Ch. 6

He feels familiar, and I realize we have not touched since he woke up. I am not that comfortable being touched-I have never been a particularly physical person outside the bedroom. Still, it has been a long time since I objected to Booth's constant physicality, despite the fact that his natural protectiveness infers weakness on my part. It must be upsetting for him to be the demonstrably weaker one of us in recent memory. I wonder if it troubles him. Booth's identity relies heavily on his perception of his own strength and he is not as good at compartmentalizing as I am.

I don't wish to make him uncomfortable, but I hold on for as long as I can. Hugging Booth has always been very satisfying to me, for reasons that probably have to do with the symmetry of his torso, his arm musculature, and the amount of pressure he exerts. I press against him, secure in the knowledge that a hug is very appropriate in this situation because, unlike Cam, he is an important person in my life and we have spent time apart. I turn my face against his carotid and feel the strong rush of his bloodstream. My lips barely brush against his skin as I grin with the joy of it, evidence that he is alive and well. His pulse stutters and he pulls away from me, saving me the embarrasment of explaining that I did not mean to do that by making an erroneous claim about probabilities, followed by an even more inaccurate statement regarding a percentage. This worries me, and I frown.

I mentally run through the data from the studies I read on his condition prior to the surgery. His speech is not slurred, and he doesn't seem irritable. A cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma could have consequences for Booth's coordination and balance, but it should not have affected his ability to process mathematical data. He looks at me with the expression that means there is something I am not picking up on, which is highly unlikely since I am a genius and he recently underwent a very traumatic surgical intervention. It is more likely he is showing some symptom that I cannot quite catalog due to my lack of expertise in this area. I make a mental note of the incident and resolve to look it up later.

I almost ask him about it but Booth, like most alphas, derives great satisfaction from his superior physical prowess and I wouldn't wish to seem as if I was questioning his abilities. I understand that Booth does not appreciate that particular insinuation even when at full capacity, and even less when it comes from me because I am his partner and it is my job to support him by omitting full truths when I know he does not want to hear them. I know we are tentative around each other. There are things that Booth does not like to discuss in public, claiming privacy or inapropriateness. Still, sometimes he talks to me if I promise to keep it between the two of us. Today I decide not to ask, too satisfied to have him back to risk asking any questions that may make things difficult for him, and not intending to keep anything private should it become necessary to share any data I acquire in the greater interest of his continued well-being.

Angela interrupts us, and I am relieved by his obvious lightheartedness at Avalon's claim about bodies underneath the fountain. He has obviously reached the same conclusion I have, so I imitate his very expressive noise when she relates the psychic's take on our relationship. Booth joins in, and it is very satisfying that despite his love of superstition we seem to be united in our belief that the psychic is full of feces. Angela's somewhat pointed reminder of my alter ego's pregnancy brings a quick end to our lighthearted interlude. The look on Booth's face reminds me of the day he woke up, uncertain of who he was, of his place in this life. He glances quickly at my lower torso. I remember that if not for his surgery and our subsequent separation, I might be halfway through my first trimester. I imagine myself sitting in his lap, his first and fifth distal phalanges resting on each of the crests of my ilium. The image is violently tender, and something in me rises up when I look at him and he can't meet my eyes. I am not sure if he is trying to spare my feelings or his, but when he does not speak, I decide to take control before his discomfort ruins our reunion. Booth is not the only one of us who is protective of our partnership. If I go along with Avalon, we could have a case, and Booth would be back to doing what he knew, what he was good at. We were always at our best when solving a murder. My logic is excellent, and it is a comfort to me that I can do this for him when so often he has to tell me how to help.

Later that night, or more precisely very early the next morning, Booth surprises me by appearing at the excavation site. He is an excellent investigator, but he usually avoids the messier portions of our job. He often talks at length about how distasteful he finds it, but I secretly suspect it has less to do with disgust and more to do with his generous but limited income and not wanting to risk staining his expensive suits. Hodgins and Angela have long since gone home, and I wonder if either of them called him to let him know I was still working and had not yet eaten. I was suddenly annoyed that they may have caused him unnecessary worry, and I can hear the bite in my words as I greet him.

"Why are you here?" He looks surprised that I would question him, but I am not completely oblivious. Despite the fact that I have spent all night underground, my circadian rythyms are very reliable and I am aware that we are only just approximating daylight. There was no need for him to be up so early. He needs his rest. I would have called him later.

"I…I hate this part of the case, you know, when you're doing stuff and I'm just at home doing nothing…" Oh. It would not have ocurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. A results-oriented individual like Booth would of course feel more in character as an active rather than a passive participant. I am immensely satisfied that I can offer him an immediate means through which to achieve his goal.

"I-I have something for you to do." I pull out the mini-disk we unearthed earlier, and his expression is not what I expected, his mouth pulling down at one corner and his tone, when he speaks, is flat. This is almost never the case with Booth. I did something wrong, but I don't know what it was. I feel my fingernails bite into my palms. What did I say? Did I highlight any inadequacies?

"Right." He is remarking on the disk as he climbs back up the ladder, and I ask if he wants to have breakfast with me. Booth and I often share meals as a way of reinforcing our friendship outside of work. He tells me he has to rush the disk to the lab so he can get it to Angela, but it is not even day- no one is up but the two of us. I tell him so, but he goes anyway. I fight the irrational pinprick of hurt. It is likely nothing to do with me. Maybe he already ate breakfast. Booth is a conscientious employee. Perhaps he called someone on his way over, and they were awake. The probability of any of these exceeds the likelihood that he would choose to avoid sharing a meal with me, if able. Booth enjoys my company. He has always told me so.

Later on, he is insistent to Angela as he asks her to hurry on the car rental research, and when he repeats her compliment with a warmth in his face that I normally only see directed toward myself and Parker and she kisses him on the cheek I do the most juvenile thing I've done in recent memory and ask him if I should kiss him, too. It's merely an experiment to see if I elicit the tradtional response. Maybe I have something to prove as well. His expression is now one that I have seen before, but never directed at me. His eyes give off sparks and he looks younger, his stern features warm. His smile is... I can't tell what it is, and I realize he is probably teasing me. He closes his eyes as if waiting for me to kiss him and I laugh and walk past him. I am glad we can still laugh together, even if I don't always get the joke.

I remember what a hurry he has been in to solve this case later on when I decide to drop by the clinic on my way home and see Dr. Leacock.

When he stabs me, at first I don't feel it. I am concentrating on defending myself, and I raise my right arm in an effort to protect my more vital head and torso. I am still focused on my possible options for offense when Dr. Leacock crumples to the ground before me, and I turn to see Booth in the doorway, his face unrecognizable with some emotion I can't place. I am sorry that he added to his tally. I know he hates that. He asks me if I am okay and when I assure him that I am, he points out the fact that I have a knife sticking out of my arm. It occurs to me that I may be in shock.

The second, compensatory stage of shock is characterized by the body employing physiological mechanisms, including neural, hormonal and bio-chemical mechanisms in an attempt to rid the body of a buildup of carbon dioxide. These mechanisms include hyperventilation and the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, the combined effect of which results in an increase in blood pressure. I feel my heart thundering against my chest in double-time as I slide down the front of the receptionist's desk, and as always, Booth is there to support me, murmuring the nonsensical things that people say in times of crisis, the words that have never come easily to me, words that Booth seems to excel at. I feel the tension of his arms encasing me and pulling me flush against his chest, and I ask him to keep the pressure on the wound as my fingers are too numb to do it myself.

Despite the knife buried in my forearm and the pulsing pain, I am not ready to move. My hearbeat sounds abnormally erratic and accelerated, and it is when I realize I am hearing two heartbeats, not one, Booth's own keeping time slightly out of sync with mine. He assures me he is with me, that he will take care of me, and I fight the urge to tell him I'm aware of his presence and don't need to be taken care of, but it is soothing all the same. I feel myself sob childishly as the strength of my need for his comfort wins out against my better judgement. Sweets would no doubt assign this to a number of past childhood traumas, but it is because he does not have the connection that we have. I am crying because of the pain, because his soul is burdened more heavily due to my mistake, because I missed him, because I could not imagine his place in my world with anyone else in it. I cry because I get it, for once. I do not hear him call me _baby_ as much as I _feel_ it, These moments of perfect clarity between us are so rare that I am willing to risk a little blood loss.

I feel Booth's lips in my hair and for a moment, my arm does not bother me at all.


End file.
